The Dream of a Child
by redcognito
Summary: Margaret tries to escape Elena's shadow.


Disclaimers: Vampire Diaries, L.J. Smith's, etc etc

Summary: Margaret tries to escape Elena's shadow. Written for the LJS100 'Metal' challenge.

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Judith slammed the stainless steel pan she was drying onto the counter. Her face pinched with anger as she glared upwards, as if she could burn a hole through the ceiling right into Margaret's room. The god-awful 'metal' music she was playing was bad enough during the day, but at eleven o' clock at night? It was appalling, and Judith wondered what on earth the neighbours thought.

She exchanged a glance with Robert, then sighed; it was her turn to go and have words. Not that it seemed to do any good, as Margaret was determined to make their lives a misery and disobey them at every turn. It was a form of teenage rebellion, she supposed, a phase, perhaps. She'd grow out of it when her hormones settled. Judith just hoped that it would be soon, because Margaret's image change was embarrassing. Her attitude stank. She was rude, abusive, moody and had no respect for anyone in authority. And the clothes she wore! Baggy, black sweaters, ratty velvet skirts, big, clunky boots that screamed violence. The pale face and dark eye makeup just made things worse. Judith tried not to think about the piercings. The multitude of earrings she could just about cope with, and even the nosering at a stretch. But the tongue piercing made her shudder, and she hadn't dared find out just what else the girl had had pierced that wasn't on display. It was the hair that upset her the most; that beautiful, golden hair being mistreated with all those garish chemical dies. It was a waste.

Throwing the dishcloth onto the counter along with the pan, she headed upstairs to bang on Margaret's door. "You open up right this minute, young lady! What do you think you're doing? You'll have the neighbours awake before long, if you haven't already!"

As she'd expected, Margaret didn't answer the door, but at least the music was turned down. Sparing one last frown at the door (complete with its boarded up panel from where Margaret had kicked it in a few months before), Judith huffed and headed back downstairs. Why, she lamented, couldn't Margaret have been like Elena as a teenager? Elena had been such a sweet girl, well behaved (for the most part, anyway, until that delinquent Salvatore had led her astray towards the end), respectful. Yes, if Margaret had turned out like Elena, life would be so much easier.

--

Margaret sat on the bedroom floor, back resting against her bed, staring down at the photograph that she was idly stroking with a black-polishd thumb. Elena smiled back up at her serenely. She hugged the picture to her chest as a tear leaked from the corner of her eye.

Oh, Elena, she thought miserably, why can't you be here?

When puberty hit, she started to resent her sister for the fact that everyone expected her to be like the dead girl, to be her, even. They'd expected her to be popular, to be vibrant, to fill the void that Elena had left behind. Aunt Judith and Uncle Robert were the worst; nothing she did ever satisfied them. She wasn't Elena, and that's all there was to it. Before long, resentment turned into frustrated hatred, and she did everything within her power to be exactly what Elena was not, to try and somehow escape the mold, to forge her own identity without Elena's ghost lurking over her.

It had worked, for a time. She might not resemble her sister anymore, but in her desperation to be different, she was all the more in Elena's shadow as people expressed their disappointment in the fact that she wasn't like her sister, that she was off the rails, behaving as perfect Elena would never have dreamed of.

The hatred of her sister had faded as her understanding of the people surrounding her increased. It wasn't Elena's fault that people compared them. Elena had been nothing but kind and loving towards her when she'd been alive. She didn't deserve the anger that Margaret was feeling. Her sister, quite possibly, would have been her greatest ally, would have supported her, not expected her to be the perfect Elena-clone.

Sometimes, in the darkest, quietest hours when she couldn't sleep, Margaret would stroke Elena's gold and lapis ring (she always wore it now) and entertain the fantasy that Elena was still alive, that she'd come and take her away to live with her and Stefan, where she'd be loved, and allowed to flourish as an individual. She dreamed of sisterly closeness, of giggles over popcorn and movies, whispered confessions in the middle of the night. She longed to be close, with someone who cared, understood, knew her better than she knew herself. She wanted someone to understand, to watch over her.

She remembered a time, so very long ago, after Elena had died, when her angel had come tapping at the window, promising to watch over her, and keep her safe. It was a distant memory, and Margaret was never sure if it was a dream or not. In the still of the night, lost in the quiet, she could believe that it had been real, and that Elena would come to her window again and take her away from it all.

But in the cold, steel-grey mornings, reality set in, and Margaret knew that she was deluding herself, clinging on to the dream of a child, because it was all she had left.

Fin.


End file.
